by Sharon Pape
“According to a colleague, one of the other drivers found him unconscious in the snow—blunt force trauma to the back of the head. If it wasn’t for the cold, he wouldn’t have survived.”
“Thank goodness. I’d hate to be the reason that an innocent party died. Has he been able to describe the killer?”
“He was hit from behind.” Neither of us spoke for a minute. “If you want out, I wouldn’t blame you,” Travis said finally. “In fact I encourage you to walk away.”
“And just how can I keep you from harm if I do that? Wait a minute,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him. “Do you have another sorcerer standing by in the wings?”
He chuckled. “Not I. One sorcerer is all I can handle.”
“What a happy coincidence; one reporter happens to be my limit too.” I reached for his hand, needing the connection. “All kidding aside,” I said, “I’m in this with you until we catch the killer. Tomorrow morning I’m going home. I’ll contact the victims’ families again, like we discussed.”
“Good,” Travis said, but he didn’t sound all that happy about my decision to see the case through. “I intend to sneak out in the next hour or so—if I can get past Tilly. I need to head over to the news bureau and play catch up. I’m going to ask them to pull me from the Albany story at least for now. Wish me luck.”
“With your boss?”
“No, in escaping your aunt. For a sweet woman, she turns into a wolverine if you’re under her care.”
“She’s only like that with family,” I said. “You should feel honored.”
He rose and planted a kiss on my forehead. “Honored but also imprisoned. She made me drink this awful stuff.”
I laughed. “Welcome to the family.”
Once the storm was over, Travis made his escape with a ride from a colleague. About the same time I eased myself out of bed and went to find Tilly. She was in the kitchen baking homemade duck food.
“I have a spell to try on him,” I said and watched her face light up. “Where is he?”
“In the bathtub. Let’s go tell him the good news.”
“Don’t oversell it, Aunt Tilly. I don’t want him to get too excited in case it doesn’t work.
“No negativity!” she chastised.
The Merlin-duck jumped out of the tub the moment we walked in, perhaps suspecting that something was afoot. He gave himself a vigorous shake, getting us soaked in the process. I still contend he did it on purpose. Focusing on him, I began:
Reverse the spell that Merlin cast.
He never meant for it to last.
Return him to his human form.
In every way restore his norm.
Tilly and I held our breath as the duck began to mutate and change. A beard popped out beneath its bill, then withdrew. Merlin’s bony foot replaced one of the duck’s webbed ones. Here an arm, there an ear. For a moment Merlin’s entire head rested on the duck’s thin neck, only to disappear again. After what must have been an exhausting five minutes, the duck was once again intact.
“Give me your hand, Aunt Tilly,” I said, remembering my first foray into detective work. “I’m not strong enough to change him by myself.” She grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tightly I gasped.
“Sorry,” she said, loosening her grip.
“Repeat the spell with me ten times.” Again we watched the incredible contortions of man and duck. Again the duck was winning. It wasn’t until the tenth repetition that Merlin burst free of his feathered prison. He collapsed on the floor like a shipwrecked man who has finally reached dry land. Tilly screamed her joy. I remained silent, my heart lodged at the base of my throat with the fear that we’d killed the legendary wizard. From where I stood, Merlin didn’t appear to be breathing. I moved closer to feel for his carotid artery, but I realized there was no need for it. I could see the barest rise and fall of his chest. His breath was far too shallow, but as I watched, it grew stronger and deeper. With tears of relief, I collapsed on the floor beside him.
Chapter 25
If Ryan had questioned Judy McFee about her husband’s arrest, he must have considered it important to his investigation. And the best way to determine that significance was to find out if the other people on the list also had an arrest in their past. With that in mind, as soon as I returned home the next morning, I placed a call to Nina Frank Lewis, the woman whose son had the chip on his shoulder. When I identified myself, she thought I had new information about her husband’s death and was clearly disappointed that I didn’t.
“I hope to in the near future,” I said in an effort to appease her. “It would be a huge help if you would answer just another question or two over the phone.”
She sighed. “I’m beginning to think my son was right to throw you out of the house.” For a moment I thought she was going to hang up on me. I needed answers and getting them from the next of kin would be the quickest method. I had to win her over, give her a reason to trust me. “Can I tell you something in confidence?” I asked.
Nina hesitated as though she suspected I had a hidden agenda. “I suppose,” she said finally. “I mean, I won’t tell anybody.”
“My partner and I are getting close to the truth. We know this, because there’s been an attempt on our lives too.”
“Have you told the police?” She sounded horrified, but also more invested.
“No, if the police become involved, the killer will go further underground. I need you to trust me. This isn’t our first case. We know what we’re doing.” I was definitely taking liberties with the truth. It was our third case and we weren’t all that sure about our methods. If I’d been Pinocchio, you could have tied a swing to my nose and given a toddler a ride.
“All right,” Nina relented, “let me hear your questions.”
“Thank you. Was Martin ever arrested?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to discuss that with you.”
“You don’t have to. Can you tell me the name of the prosecutor in the case?”
“Bradley Epps.”
I could hear her distaste for the man in the way she spoke, as if his name curdled on her tongue. “And your husband’s defense attorney?”
“Sam Crawford. If you ever need a criminal attorney, he’s the one you want.”
“Good to know.” I thanked her, and she told me to be careful as if she sincerely meant it. I decided to take it in that spirit. I looked at my watch to see if I had time for one more call before heading over to Abracadabra, but I was already late. It was two days since the accident and I was still moving in slow motion, feeling like I couldn’t get out of my own way. According to the ER doctor, it takes time to recover from a concussion and I was not to push myself too hard too soon. It was a good thing he didn’t know about the exertion required to rescue Merlin or he probably would have had me lashed to a hospital bed, until he considered me fit to be on my own. For Tilly’s sake, I’d tried to mask how much it took out of me. She was in such a difficult spot, desperate to help Merlin and afraid to harm me. I was sure the only reason she let me try the spell so soon after the concussion was because she’d convinced herself that my magickal abilities were separate from my physical state.
I searched around the house for Sashkatu, but he wasn’t in any of his usual haunts. When I’d first returned home from Tilly’s two hours earlier, he’d glared at me, lifted his chin in the air, and disappeared. At least the other cats were happy to see me. I considered taking one of them along to the shop, but which one? The last thing I needed was a jealousy-fueled cat fight. I gave up and was closing the door behind me, when Sashki slipped neatly through the narrowing space between the door and the jamb. Had he timed it any more closely, he might have lost the tip of his tail. He threw me a haughty glance over his shoulder as if to say, “You’re not dealing with an amateur here.”
The morning was busy with customers. No time to rest. At noon, I pu
t my clock sign in the window so I could catch my breath. Lolly, who didn’t often close for lunch, made an exception that day and came to visit. I couldn’t turn her away and more to the point, I didn’t want to. She wrapped her arms around me in a tight embrace, then held me at arms’ length to study me. “How are you doing after that awful accident? When Tilly was filling in for you yesterday, she told me you were on the mend, but that it would take time. I never expected to see you back at work this soon.”
“I’m fine,” I said with a smile. “And if I’m not a hundred percent, I will be soon.”
“Thank goodness. There’s been more than enough bad news around here lately. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take advantage of that chair to get off my feet for a bit.” I followed her over to the chair and saw how gingerly she lowered herself into it. I realized she didn’t look well. Her face was flushed and most of her hair had escaped its usually well-secured bun.
“Are you all right?” I asked her.
She wagged her head. “I’ve started making the chocolate for my special holiday boxes and I’m already done in. The demand has grown tenfold over the years. There are folks who come in and buy fifteen, twenty boxes to give as gifts. I know I shouldn’t complain. Lord knows I can use the money, but every year it’s harder on me than the year before. There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t ache.”
I’d never known Lolly to be a complainer. She came from the old school of “suck it up and get on with it, and while you’re at it slap on a smile.”
“I have something that may help,” I said.
“You’ve come up with a cure for old age?” she asked wryly.
“Don’t I wish. That would certainly bring in the customers.”
“The doctor says it’s my arthritis creeping into my knees and back,” Lolly said. “Apparently it’s no longer content with just my fingers and toes.”
“Can you describe the pain?” Morgana and Bronwen had formulated different mixtures for different types of pain.
“It’s like winter set up shop in my joints and is gnawing away at them.”
“Give me a sec.” I went down the second aisle and, after rooting around a bit, found the last tube of the special ointment for chronic pain hidden behind the jars of liniment for muscle soreness. The ointment was infused with a spell for pain relief and another for general wellness. Although it’s difficult for magick to completely erase physical pain, this ointment seemed to do the trick for a lot of my customers. I’d have to make more of it the first chance I had. I brought the tube back to Lolly and rubbed some gently into her swollen knuckles to show her how to apply it.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said, “if that doesn’t already feel some better. Thank you.” She began to pull herself out of the chair, but then dropped back down. “Believe it or not, I didn’t actually come here to complain to you, though I seem to have done an admirable job of it.”
“What’s up?”
“I remember you telling me about a rough-looking biker guy who came in and asked you some peculiar questions not too long ago.”
“Did you see him around here?” I asked, instantly on alert.
“I think he must be the one who came into my shop yesterday, ordered some fudge, and asked about you. He’d heard about the accident the day before and wondered if you were okay.”
“What did you tell him?” And why was he still hanging around New Camel? He’d painted himself as a vagabond, a traveler, a man without roots, always on the move. He should have been long gone from our tiny corner of the world.
“I asked him why he wanted to know. He said he enjoyed talking to you and hoped you were doing all right. I told him you were doing fine, but I didn’t go into detail.” It was more likely he wanted to hear that I was dead or dying.
“Was he riding a motorcycle?” I asked.
“Yes, I watched him from the window when he left. He had it parked at the curb a couple shops up from yours.”
“By any chance, did you get the plate number?”
“I tried, but the angle was too oblique for me to see anything. And I was busy looking at the paint job,” she added sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
“What was it about the paint?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.
“It reminded me of a Harley one of my boyfriends had a thousand years ago,” she said with a sigh of nostalgia. “Black on white, the design made me think of swirling snakes with their forked tongues extended.”
“What part of the bike had the design?” At least I’d have some means of describing the bike to the police if it ever came to that.
“The gas tank,” she murmured, lost in her memories. “Johnny was the bad boy no girl could resist. He would pick me up and off we’d go. He was quite a looker. It all seemed very romantic at the time. My mother hated that bike and Johnny, I suspect. It wasn’t until I had my own kids that I was able to understand her fears.”
I laughed. “I can’t picture you as a wild teenager. I’ve only known you to be sensible and nurturing.”
“Everyone is young at least once,” she said. When I didn’t smile or say anything, she asked me what was wrong.
“I just don’t know why this biker is so interested in me.”
“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” Lolly said. “Any man would have to be at least half dead not to be taken with you.”
I decided to drop the subject of the biker. There was no point in worrying her, when I might be tilting at windmills. I asked about her grandchildren, a proven method of lightening her mood.
The shop was quiet in the afternoon, as if the local populace had conferred and decided to pile on me in the morning. I took the opportunity to call the other family members. Max Gonzalez didn’t hesitate to answer my questions.
“Was Calista ever arrested?” I asked.
“There was an incident a number of years back, but it was over pretty fast as I recall. She had a great attorney.”
“Sam Crawford?”
“Yeah, good guess.”
“Was the county prosecutor Bradley Epps by any chance?”
“He was… You’re on fire.”
Next up was Chris Dowland’s widow. Chris had had a run-in with the law and hired Sam Crawford to defend him. Once again Epps managed to lose the case. Either Crawford was terrific or Epps was abysmal. Since different judges had presided over the cases, it wasn’t likely they’d played a pivotal role in the outcomes.
I called Austin Stubbs, Axel’s father, but came away as empty-handed as every other time. He still had an old-school land-line, because he slammed it down so hard my ear was ringing for a good five minutes. I turned to the internet and tracked down an article about Axel’s trial that mentioned Epps and the “flamboyant defense attorney,” Sam Crawford.
Travis called as I was walking into my house at the end of the day, feeling more dead than alive. The ER doc knew his stuff. In the first seconds of conversation, we established that the concussions had whipped our mutual butts. I gave him a brief account of my phone calls.
“I spent the day trying to dredge up some kin of Henry Lomax’s to interview,” he said.
“Hermit Henry,” I murmured. While most kids across the country were terrified of Freddie and Jason from the movies, if you lived in the greater Watkins Glen area, Hermit Henry was the monster you ran from in your nightmares. I’d never seen a picture of the man, but a child’s imagination doesn’t need much fodder on which to build its horrors. I pulled myself back to the present. “No luck I take it.”
“I have one possible lead. According to a few people in the area, he had an ex and a daughter. The wife was given sole custody of the girl, so it didn’t surprise anyone when they left town as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce decree. If the rumor mill is to be trusted, the ex died of cancer maybe ten years ago. No one’s heard anything about the girl in at least that long.”
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“All we need for now is his attorney’s name. Try looking online like I did for Axel.”
“Will do. Listen, I don’t think we can go much further without speaking to at least one of the principals at all these trials.”
“I’d start with Epps,” I said.
“My thought exactly.”
Chapter 26
After a week of wrestling with the aftereffects of our concussions, Travis and I finally began to function more like ourselves. It took Merlin considerably longer. Not only was he much older, but a concussion couldn’t be compared to the trauma of a transmutation. Make that two transmutations in just a few days. There was nothing to be found on the internet that addressed the problem and no practitioners of magick more knowledgeable or powerful than what was left of my family, namely Tilly and me. His lingering problems included quacking in the middle of an otherwise normal remark and squawking when he was distressed—a self-perpetuating cycle, since one set off the other. We did our best not to laugh at his predicament, but we weren’t always successful.
When Morgana and Bronwen popped in to assure themselves that I was on the mend, they had a front row seat to Merlin’s misery. Though they too tried to remain sober, death hadn’t robbed them of their sense of humor. Morgana was the first to cave, her energy cloud bouncing up and down in the air with her laughter.
“How could you?!” Bronwen demanded. “Merlin deserves more dignified treatment.”
“Precisely,” he sputtered. “Quack you, Bronwen, squawk!” That proved too much for even Bronwen to bear. She dissolved into great peals of laughter, her cloud scudding across the room like a sailboat catching the wind. Grumbling and squawking, Merlin took off to the bathroom. A moment later we heard splashing in the tub. The need to immerse himself in water was another of his duck issues, along with an addiction to grapes.
I kept thinking how lucky we were that Tilly hadn’t suffered a similar fate when she let Merlin transmute her just a few months ago. Whatever was playing havoc with our magick was completely unpredictable. One day I could rearrange my living room by telekinesis and the next I couldn’t send a bowl into the sink without smashing it into a thousand pieces. It was like walking down a familiar road, not knowing when or where the pavement might suddenly collapse beneath our feet. Perhaps the worst part was not being able to identify the cause of the problem. Without a cause, how could we hope to fix it? I tucked the matter back behind the door in my mind where unsolvable questions moldered. We had enough other problems to deal with at the moment.